Beat Generation is a play about tension, about friendship, and
about karmawhat it is and how you get it. It begins one fine
morning with a few friends, honest laborers some of them, some
close to being down-and-out, passing around a bottle of wine. It
ends with a kind of satori-like reaffirmation of the power of
friendship, of doing good through not doing, and the intrinsic
worth of the throwaway little exchanges that make up our lives.
Written in 1957, the same year that On the Road was first
published, and set in 1953, Beat Generation portrays an authentic
and alternate 1950s America. Kerouac's characters are working-class
men and womena step away from vagrants, but not a big step. Their
dialogue positively sings, suggesting jazz riffs in their rhythm
and content, and Kerouac, like a master composer, arranges it to
magical effect. Here is the heart and soul of the beat mentality,
the zeitgeist that blossomed over the decades and eventually
culminated in the counter-culture of 1960s America. It's a spirit
that still lives.